


Covalent

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Series: Covalent Bonds [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Culture Shock, F/M, Gen, Hemospectrum, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Psychic Bond, Sexual Harassment, Species Swap, Trollstuck, packbonding, troll!kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-- tentacleTherapist [TT] has joined memo CALLING ALL JACKASSES --</p><p>CG: THANK LITTLE JEGUS AND ALL HIS WIGGLER-EATING ELVES. WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING STATUS.<br/>CA: oh great and wwhich human evven is that again<br/>TT: Oh, please. We both know perfectly how well you remember me, Mr. Ampora.<br/>TT: My status is, if you will permit the bad joke, wet and horny.<br/>CG: MY GANDERBULBS JUST IMPLODED FROM GROSS BY PROXY. WHAT THE CROTCHBLISTERING *FUCK*, LALONDE?<br/>TT: As in, I have just emerged from what is either a recuperacoon or a fairly good mock-up, and there are protrusions attached to my skull that I am inclined to believe would be candy-corn-colored.<br/>CG: ... OH. YEAH, VERY AMUSING. I AM VERY AMUSED. HERE IS A PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF MY MIRTH. |:B</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "A covalent bond is the chemical bond that involves the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding. For many molecules, the sharing of electrons allows each atom to attain the equivalent of a full outer shell, corresponding to a stable electronic configuration." [Wikipedia.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covalent)

She wakes cradled in a womb.

It is dark in here, and wet warmth cocoons her, steals all gravity; she floats.

Her first thought is, _well fuck. Growing up all over again is going to be so tedious._

She's read so many short stories with this exact premise -- reincarnation, and the slow erasure of the old self into the immaturity of synapses, unfinished neural pathways, preferable maybe to the madness one might succumb to after years of being trapped in a body that cannot move and fight and even focus its eyes on things farther than its own hands, that cannot communicate or be communicated with. She finds it so vexing; she kicks, swift as the thick liquid around her will allow it.

Bonk.

Ow.

This was not a _flesh_ wall.

Rose reaches out, cautious. The surface gives some under her hands, lightly padded, but it reminds her more of plastic than flesh -- though a little of flesh as well, if merely a thin coat over a harder structure.

Also she can feel her breasts against the inside of her upper arms.

Alright. Not a baby then. Very well. She pats herself down, to check -- no umbilical cord, limbs the appropriate length.

No hair between her thighs, and the spot feels strange in a way that she doesn't want to explore. She yanks her hands away, explores _up_ herself.

She is not as surprised as she should be when she feels two hard protrusions on her skull, piercing through her hairline and rising into smooth, barely curved lance points.

Everyone knew the game would try to fuck them over a last time upon exiting it, she more than most. And she already knew that no matter what -- even were her own old world the destination -- she would not be granted her mother back, as her mother exists already in Roxy. She will not get her mother back, but she will get Roxy and Dirk and Jane and Jake, and keep her friends beside. The rest is just details.

The question now becomes, Beforus or Alternia?

She pushes against the nearest wall, feels the next, pats around. Being unable to find up is more confusing than it should be.

Her skull tingles strangely as thick globs run off it -- no, that's her horns. Sopor flowing down, the strange coolness of air; the surface is that way.

She finds ridges one might sit upon, pushes up, and breaks the surface.

It's dark out there but she feels the edges of the opening of the... recuperacoon was the name, she believes, and she hauls herself out. Sopor drips off her naked body in fat globs, drags strangely off her cheeks, splashes out of the lip of the recuperacoon and onto a floor she doesn't really see, but which she can guess at somehow. She glides off the bulbous outside surface and lands, a little awkwardly, but on her feet.

She ventures away from the recuperacoon, a hand held out. She steps on cloth (wool squelches), comes to an inexplicable stop only to find under her hands, a second later, the back of a chair.

Her desk chair. Her desk.

The laptop's on-off switch isn't quite in the same place, but when she turns it on and dim light throws the bedroom into sharp relief suddenly it doesn't matter at all. She's in her bedroom, bed replaced by some weird, massive insectile cocoon contraption, but the rest identical down to the articles of clothing and notebooks strewn haphazardly on the floor. Her posters now have horns.

Her screensaver is the same and her icons are the same -- Pesterchum is gone but she's seen the Trollian icon often enough on Kanaya's computers.

She sits, damp-assed and dripping, ruining her chair; she doesn't care, she needs to know.

On her chumproll are mostly grayed-out names -- her heart kicks at her ribcage -- but a few are lit up.

Some which she has not seen lit up in years, or never seen lit up before.

Ding. New alert in her tray.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] has invited you to join memo CALLING ALL JACKASSES --

She clicks with maybe a touch more urgency than she will ever admit.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] has joined memo CALLING ALL JACKASSES --

CG: THANK LITTLE JEGUS AND ALL HIS WIGGLER-EATING ELVES. WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING STATUS.  
CA: oh great and wwhich human evven is that again  
TT: Oh, please. We both know perfectly how well you remember me, Mr. Ampora.  
TT: My status is, if you will permit the bad joke, wet and horny.  
CG: MY GANDERBULBS JUST IMPLODED FROM GROSS BY PROXY. WHAT THE CROTCHBLISTERING *FUCK*, LALONDE?  
TT: As in, I have just emerged from what is either a recuperacoon or a fairly good mock-up, and there are protrusions attached to my skull that I am inclined to believe would be candy-corn-colored.  
CG: ... OH. YEAH, VERY AMUSING. I AM VERY AMUSED. HERE IS A PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF MY MIRTH. |:B  
CA: wwhat youre sayin youre a fuckin troll noww  
CA: bullfuckinshit theres no wway youd be that improvved the univverse aint so kind  
TT: It was kind enough to bring a deserving young man such as you back to the world of the living, wasn't it?  
CG: NO CATTINESS. I CAN NOT TAKE CATTINESS, FROM EITHER OF YOU.  
CG: I AM SO FUCKING RELIEVED YOU'RE HERE, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.  
CG: SHIT, THAT CAME OUT WRONG.  
CG: I MEAN, YOU MIGHT HAVE ENDED UP BACK ON EARTH. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD FOR YOU GUYS, I KNOW, AND I'M SORRY IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. BUT WE WOULD HAVE NEVER KNOWN FOR SURE.  
CG: BUT YOU'RE HERE AND NOT VISIBLY AN ALIEN TO BE CAPTURED AND TORTURED OUT OF HAND, AND YOU MUST HAVE A HIVE TO BE SAFE IN IF YOU HAVE A 'COON, AND IF YOU'RE LIKE THIS THEN SO WILL BE THE OTHER HUMANS. RIGHT? RIGHT.  
CG: ROSE?  
TT: One minute, please. There is alas no mirror in my bedroom, and while in the faint light of my screen my hands do appear gray-skinned, I was wondering if I couldn't get a better idea of my new appearance using the webcam. The settings seem slightly different...  
TT: Oh, there it goes.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] has activated her webcam! --

CG: HOLY FLYING NUTBEAST FUCK.  
CG: LALONDE WHAT THE HELL  
CG: I DID NOT NEED TO SEE YOUR SOPOR-GLISTENING RUMBLE SPHERES TODAY.  
CA: i did  
CA: personally speakin  
CG: ANY DAY BUT ESPECIALLY TODAY. IN THE LIST OF THINGS I NEEDED TO SEE THIS WAS IN PLACE NEGATIVE THREE BILLION AND SEVEN.  
CA: that is wwhat is commonly knowwn as an awwesome rack an kar you should be fuckin grateful to be alivve today  
CA: ros in case your wweak subtrollian brain couldnt parse it youre on livve cam

She has two choices here, either yelping and covering herself and turning off the cam, or smirking thinly and arching an eyebrow.

She is even now still and forever Rose Lalonde, so the response she goes with is pretty expected. She'll probably apologize to Karkat afterwards.

TT: I had managed to figure out as much, dear.  
TT: And yes, I do agree with your assessment. This is quite the fine rack.

She leans her body forward slightly, tilts her head, admires the murderous points attached to her skull. No frills, simply two elegant spears to gore people with, of a nicely imposing length without being cumbersome. It could have been worse.

Her hair is black as coal.

It could have been worse.

CG: HAR HAR.  
CG: DO YOU HABVE A SHIRTON YET  
CG: HURYUP.  
TT: Karkat, if you are typing with your eyes closed... How are you planning to read my reply?  
CA: or you could yknoww  
CA: talk out loud in the microphone so kindly provvided wwith your wwebcam

Err. Well.

She is possibly a tad more discombobulated than she thought she was.

"That _is_ an idea."

CG: ARE YOU UNNAKED YET??

"No, I'm afraid not. Please wait a moment."

She covers the cam with a scarf before she stands; there's no reason to give Ampora any more of a show. She's still damp and disgusting, and the green that hasn't sloughed off her is drying; it's repulsive and is going to itch before long. She can't make herself get off the computer that long right now, though. She wiggles into a shirt stamped with some kind of highly stylized whale line art on it instead of her customary Fluthlu face, and a skirt. After due thought (mostly of Eridan's reaction) she puts on panties underneath. The bra will wait.

TT: I'm back.  
TT: My apologies for distressing you, Karkat, I was in something of a hurry. Waking in the recuperacoon was quite confusing.  
CG: NO PROBLEM. I GET YOU.  
CG: AND YOU MANAGED TO FIX IT BEFORE WE GOT DEAD OF KANAYA, FOR WHICH I THANK YOU. BECAUSE TO BE HONEST I WOULD RATHER LICK THE OOZING PUSTULES ON THE MOTHERGRUB'S ASS CHEEKS THAN GO UP AGAINST YOUR MATESPRIT. EVER.  
CG: LET'S JUST... HEY LALONDE, YOU'RE ALIVE, WHAT POSITIVELY FABULOUS NEWS. WHAT IS UP IN YOUR CORNER OF THE WOODS.

She turns back to look out of her window, gets up to peer out.

TT: For one thing, no woods, at least on this side of the house. I do believe I'm right next to the sea.  
CA: that might have somethin to do wwith the ear fins youre sportin swweetcheeks  
CA: just a thought  
CA: wwe observvant people havve those sometimes  
TT: Huh.  
TT: Indeed. I was rather more arrested by the horns.  
TT: What other features should I expect out of a sea dweller that could not be found on an ordinary, say, jade-blooded individual?  
CA: ill thank you not to keep bringing up kan  
CA: might a had lots a time to get ovver my brutal murderin at her hands seein howw i kinda maybe murdered her first but it wwas still plenty murderous if you get me  
CA: an you should havve gillslits on the sides a your neck a bit an some betwween your ribs  
CA: the first one should be nestled just under your breasts followwing the curvve  
CA: fine as they are im told its a bit of a problem for wwell endowwed ladies a the maritime persuasion  
CG: HUH.

Rose does not have the freedom to read whatever Karkat might say next. Someone is yelling outside her house. Hive. They're also throwing rocks. Hrrm.

Her strife specibus is nowhere to be seen, but there are knitting needles imbedded in quite a few balls of yarn around her; she pulls a pair free and pads silently down the darkened corridor.

She doesn't go downstairs; she finds a window that overlooks the spot the noise is coming from and peers down. It's a bit of a shock -- an unpleasant one, surprisingly -- seeing brand new people after so long in the game with the same copies of the same people over and over again.

They are trolls, one blue, one Gamzee-purple or maybe a bit lower. They look older than her by a couple of years, and bigger, even the girl, yet as she observes the way they dare each other to come up to her walls and kick, only to retreat... Hm.

" _\--back to the water, you freak! Oh wait, you can't!_ "

That is obviously the height of humor for these two. She pops open her window and leans out. She would -- at any other time -- find it, she is sure, a joy to interact with the first neighbors she has ever had in her life.

Right now they're preventing her from camping on her chumproll, waiting for her friends and family to wake.

"Hey, she's here!"

They point, take a nervous step back. Stiffen their shoulders, and come back, testing the edge of a range much wider than even thrown needles could bridge with any sufficient force.

She narrows her eyes.

She is not a seer anymore, and seer is too passive for right now anyway. The horrorterrors aren't whispering to her.

Something at the edge of her mind tickles at her, though -- something that feels horrendously, deliciously similar.

Something that twists in her mental grip the exact same way.

\--

CG: NOW THAT YOU'RE MENTIONING IT, I DON'T REMEMBER SEEING ANY.  
CG: NOT THAT I STARED OR ANYTHING I JUST  
CG: THEY WERE PRETTY MEMORABLE, OKAY?  
CG: DEAR HORRORTERRORS, ANSWER ME THIS RIDDLE. WHY MUST WE KEEP RETURNING TO THE TOPIC OF LALONDE'S CHEST BUMPERS???  
CA: theyre pretty nice an im somehoww thinkin you aint been seein much of those on yer own kar  
CG: SHUT UP.  
CA: awwww come on here i am generously offerin to lend an ear to your quadrant shenanigans an youre turnin me dowwn flat a guy could feel hurt  
CG: ... YES, WELL.  
CG: SORRY.  
CG: ANYWAY MY QUADRANTS ARE A FUCKING WASTELAND. BOMBED INTO SLAG BY ORDER OF HER IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION. NOTHING TO SEE, ESPECIALLY NOT PERTINENT ANATOMY. NOT MUCH TO TALK ABOUT.  
CG: I SHOULD TALK TO GAMZEE WHEN HE GETS HIS ASS ONLINE, SEE IF HE WANTS TO  
CG: UH.  
CA: gam you say are you fuckin serious  
CA: come on kar dont play coy noww  
CG: WE KIND OF WENT PALE WHILE YOU GUYS WERE DEAD, ALRIGHT? BUT HE WAS NEVER AROUND, AND THEN HE DUMPED ME, SAYING HE HAD SOMEONE ELSE.  
CG: TURNED OUT THAT SOMEONE ELSE WAS LORD ENGLISH.  
CA: wwhat that makes no sense at all  
CA: i thought gam was on your side durin the last battle  
CG: PRECISELY. I DON'T KNOW IF HE WAS A DOUBLE AGENT FROM THE START OR IF HE HAD A CHANGE OF HEART, BUT.  
CG: IT WAS AN ASSHOLE MOVE TO GO BEHIND MY BACK. MOIRALLEGIANCE IS NOT THE CODDLING PEOPLE AND LYING TO THEM AND NOT FUCKING RELYING ON THEM QUADRANT. SO PERHAPS WE'RE FUCKED NO MATTER WHAT. BUT PERHAPS, WELL.  
CA: wwanta get back together huh  
CG: I DON'T KNOW.  
CA: hes a crazed clown cultist wwho cant figure out faygo aint for wwashin in kar you could do so much better  
CA: just about anyone wwhos figured how to use wwords a more than twwo syllables to start wwith  
CG: SHUT UP, I KNOW.  
CG: IT'S JUST THAT HE WAS MY FIRST, OKAY? THAT LEAVES A MARK.  
CG: IT STARTED OUT SO PERFECT. I PAPPED HIM OUT OF A FUCKING MURDEROUS RAMPAGE, HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THAT HAPPENING OUTSIDE A FUCKING MOVIE? ME NEITHER.  
CG: I THOUGHT IT WAS SERENDIPITY. IT *FELT* LIKE SERENDIPITY.  
CG: NOW... I DON'T KNOW. I KIND OF GAVE UP ON HIS UNRELIABLE SELFISH ASS, BUT THEN HE WENT BACK TO OUR SIDE AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHICH WAY IS UP ANYMORE.  
CA: huh  
CG: LET'S BE HONEST, I'M PROBABLY GOING TO FORGIVE HIM, I HAVE ABOUT AS MUCH SPINE AS A JELLYFINBEAST THAT WAY. DON'T KNOW HOW SMART IT WOULD BE TO GIVE HIM A SECOND CHANCE THOUGH.  
CG: HAH. LISTEN TO ME TALK LIKE I'M SO SURE HE EVEN WANTS ME STILL. MY ARROGANCE KNOWS NO BOUNDS.  
TT: Back. My apologies for not warning you of my departure.  
CG: HURRAY, ANOTHER CHANGE OF TOPIC, FALLEN FROM THE SKIES.  
CG: WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO, LALONDE, AND ALSO THERE IS NO REASON TO READ THE WALL OF TEXT BEFORE YOU, NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE WAS SAID.  
TT: I will, of course, take you entirely at your word and trustingly decline to scroll up.  
TT: A couple of neighbors did me the courtesy of dropping by.  
CG: OH HELL. ARE YOU OKAY?  
TT: A slight headache. It's already fading.  
TT: As for your earlier comments, Eridan, it appears, alas, that Karkat's keen eyes were observant as ever. I am not in possession of rib gills.  
CA: wwelp  
CA: youre an inbetwweener that figures  
CA: from freak fake wwizard human to freak fake sea troll  
CA: knockoff vvioletblood undeservvin a the exalted status you cheated your way into  
TT: Oh, that's quite alright. I don't believe I mind.  
TT: Seeing as it also appears I have the ability Gamzee called chucklevoodoos.  
TT: :)  
CG: JEGUSFUCK, SOMEONE CULL ME. FUCKING *FIGURES*.  
CG: IF I EVER SEE YOU IN PAINTS, I WILL FLIP OFF THE HANDLE SO FAST IT WILL BE LIKE I TELEPORTED.

\--

So, they are on Alternia. It figures. Karkat agrees with her that naturally the game could not let them go without a last fuck you for the road, and it would have made him much too paranoid if they'd landed on Beforus and the place was just as much of a paradise as advertised.

They are on Alternia, and there is an Empress, somewhere up in space, and none of the Beforan trolls are online. Rose tries not to wonder too much whether they're on Roxy and Dirk's Earth, and human somehow, or somewhere else -- something else -- entirely. Roxy and Dirk's screen names are in her chump roll, and she might not have been given any of the Beforans' screen names but she figures if the universe had rewritten her young mother and her teammates out of existence that there would be no tipsyGnostalgic waiting, grayed out, in her list.

The rambling conversation continues. Nepeta joins the chat, and Aradia, and Tavros. Rose waits.

She is not alone, she has these allies, and for all that she hasn't met most of the rest of them in person she counts Karkat at least as a friend. She is not alone.

None of them know of the quiet, deep chasm in her mind that yawns a little wider the longer no other ex-human shows up. No jade-blooded, lovely undead either, no fellow Seer.

She doesn't mind being alone, she was always a solitary child, it's alright. She will just wait, a little while longer.

Maybe it's the famed highblood instability, mining at her foundations. Irrational. She cannot logic it away.

Someone is knocking at her front door again. Heavy, hammering knocks; she can hear the door trembling from here.

TT: My apologies, another neighbor has come to introduce themselves.  
TT: I do believe I will introduce them to my needles, this time around. Be right back.

They sound strong, the way the door rocks. She doesn't care. A needle through the brain cannot be stopped with muscle power. She glides down the stairs on bare feet.

"You're trespassing. I advise you to leave," she calls through the door, a last and only warning.

Only the troll on the other side of the door doesn't. "Yeah, yeah, sorry! It's just I didn't remember this hive being here before, so I came to say -- hi?"

Door handle in her hand, shoulder smarting from yanking too fast, too hard, Rose stares at the girl on her doorstep. The tall, spear-horned, finned girl in a swimsuit and bright cheerful veils, who she only ever met in passing, who she never said a direct word to.

"Feferi," she says, and then she chokes on nothing, on air.

On air and a feeling, akin to her chucklevoodoos but not -- there is no terror in this feeling, maybe annoyance -- this girl is too casually cheerful, pushy, too used to being loved.

This girl is _Rose's_ , in a way she cannot explain.

"Oh hey! I figured you kind of were, at least honorary because of you being aliens, but it shore is nice to be able to tell!"

Feferi grins wide, baring all her needle fangs. Rose notes in a small corner of her brain that she needs to get a better look at her own teeth, see what she has to counter with.

She's too stunned to threat-smile back.

"Tell _what_?"

Feferi is walking past her and up the stairs to her room, as though she's been in and out of Rose's house all her life and knows where everything is. But she's still here at the edge of Rose's mind, a vast yawning chasm full of easy joy and horrors beyond the void, inextricably mingled. "This is so exciting, I need to tell Karcrab straight away -- hmm?"

"What is it nice to be able to tell?" Rose repeats, dogging her heels and irritated from it. Part of her is frustrated, confused. Part of her already knows. She doesn't like pretending ignorance. She reformulates. "What -- What is that? This feeling. Do remember up until recently I was an alien."

Feferi pauses at the top of the stairs, looks back at her, head tilted.

"We're crew, of course."

It explains exactly nothing at all. It's very visible she is not using it in a workmanlike sense. Rose understands the implication of togetherness, of a common goal, but the underlying assumptions are a huge void.

Rose sits on her bed and watches Feferi take over her husktop (she has no pockets and no sylladex for her own husktop! Thanks, Rose!) and turns and turns that faint, blinding feeling in her mind, that aurora-light awareness.

Eventually she gets her hubtopband out of the wardrobe. Feferi has logged her out and logged herself in. One nice thing: Rose now has coordinates for her own place. No, two nice things: Gl'bgolyb used to rest in a fault very close to her place; it isn't here anymore.

She doesn't feel up to braving the group chat. There still isn't any ex-human in it.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

TT: Karkat? I see Feferi has shared the "good news" already, so I shan't have to give you a background for this question.  
TT: Will you *please* explain crews to me? She is absolutely no help.  
CG: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HUMANS DIDN'T HAVE THOSE. HOW DID YOU KNOW WHO NOT TO KILL?  
TT: It was much harder meeting with someone who we ought to kill, funnily enough. As for our own hostile impulses, basic kindergarten socialization usually did the trick.  
TT: Now explain, please.  
CG: MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE HUMANS ARE TOTAL PSYCHIC NULLS, AND EVEN TROLLS WHO HAVE NO USEABLE ABILITY AT ALL ARE STILL RECEPTIVE. SO YOU HAD TO DO THE SAME THING WITH SOCIAL CONDITIONING? HM.  
TT: *Karkat*!  
CG: OKAY, OKAY, HOLD YOUR MUSCLEBEASTS.  
CG: WHEN A TROLL AND A TROLL AND A THIRD AND FOURTH TROLLS TOLERATE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH...


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have some Dave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for sexual harassment in this chapter.

Troll wifi sucks, is what Dave decides after twenty very calm, very rational minutes spent sitting on his ass in slimy heart-patterned boxers fiddling with his iShades, then his iPhone, and his suddenly not floating anymore turntop.

(It still works, it just won't stay up, and it's heavy on his knees.)

He'd use the desktop but his house has no power either. The lights won't turn on. His blinds aren't the best, though; outside there's billboards and shit, so he can see fine.

Maybe a little too fine.

He ain't complaining.

"Okay," he says to the walls -- good walls, best listeners, they didn't even mind when he was flipping his sh -- no, he was calm from the start, yes, he was. Anyway the walls are cool, they don't judge. "I need to go and fix this shit, if it can be fixed, and if I can't I need to find someone who can. Yep. That's the plan."

Interacting with strangers isn't something he looks forward to, but who knows what happened to Jade or John, the naive bastards, they know even less about trolls than he does and they're sure to land themselves in deep shit. Someone needs to come to the rescue.

He drags himself up. His balance is off. Fucking horns, pulling his head back. Massive as his swag, and they feel pretty badass -- some kind of mountain ram horns, he thinks, half circles instead of Aradia's spirally ones -- but man were they a pain to get out of the 'coon with. Also to navigate doorways.

It's weird as fuck, it's like his eyes are telling him, yeah, you're getting through just fine here, and his... _something else_ is quietly whispering, no, dude, no, _center_ of the doorway, you're too close to the _ow_. Fucking doorjamb, hooking his horntip, it's like hitting a tooth and wrenching his neck both. Fucking lying eyes.

In the shower he moves slowly, calculating his every single gesture, and manages to yank down the shoddily secured shower curtain anyway.

(There used to be a glass door, he thinks, but only the hinges are left. At least there's still water, tepid as it is. Looks like his apartment is even shittier now than it used to be.)

He observes himself as he can in the mirror over the sink. His eyes are yellow and gray, with rings and cracks of dark red showing through the irises from the edge in. His hair is a lame, boring, emo black. He does and doesn't recognize himself; it's disturbing.

The horns do look rad, at least. His teeth are a little sharper, but really not very much.

Dry and dressed, he goes looking for his sylladex. Nothing turns up. His strife deck should similarly be missing but when he picks up a sword from the wall-mounted rack -- an array of his own bastard swords, not his brother's ninja shit -- it fits in his hand pretty normally. He's going to look like a tool; he ties the scabbard to his belt, tests pulling it out, yeah, it'll do.

For lack of a better place he puts his iPhone in a pocket, and hopes he remembers not to do anything that'll break or dump it. His iShades go on his nose -- never too many computers, Jade was right -- and he pockets his house key and climbs up, to get a better look at what he's going to be working with.

He takes three steps on the roof and then someone whistles at him.

"Woo! You're _late_ , babe! Missed moonrise."

What the fucking fuckity fuck. He doesn't jerk around to face the voice, but only because it came from pretty far away. He turns, casual, his spine a block of steel, his hand resting casual-like on the pommel of his sword.

There's another, weird-looking apartment building on that side, a tad higher than his. There's an asshole with spoon-shaped horns and a shit-eating grin hanging from his window, grinning at him with a shit-ton of teeth.

 _Babe_. Are they _friends_ in this universe? Have they been _flirting_? _Has troll!Dave been flirting with a troll dude in a wifebeater?_ Shit. Okay, okay, breathe. Luckily, the response is the same for friends, flirts, annoyances and enemies; a drawled, bland, "Do you know how long it takes to polish a bulge the size of mine, dude?"

The guy laughs back, drawls some cliche shit about how he wouldn't mind finding out, all suggestive and wannabe-purry. Dave turns his side to him, so he can keep him in sight without looking like he especially wants a conversation, and looks over the town.

The air is hazy same as Houston, and it's noisy same as Houston -- not as big, though, he sees green in the distance, and the buildings are more like tall concrete stems with pustule-looking hives sticking out of the sides at random intervals.

It's not the best idea he's ever had, but he pads to the edge of the roof anyway, to look at Prince Charming from closer up.

"So."

"Heeey, sweetling."

... What.

No, okay, he can do it. Think of Jade and John, man. "You got power in your place? 'cause mine's down."

Oh hell, he didn't think that grin could widen any. "Got shit to _plug in_? You could certainly drop by and find out."

Yeah, okay, he doesn't have power either. Useless. (Also he makes Dave feel like he's wrapping his naked body in a kingly cloak made of the plushest, cuddliest smuppet asses. Nope.jpg.) "Yeeeeah, I'm thinking maybe next year." He turns away.

"Hey, come on, don't be such a bulgetease, what the hell was that? Stride? Stride, you little bitch--"

Dave isn't even listening anymore.

On the other side of the city there's a river -- large, winding, peppered with abandoned rusty shit.

In the middle of the river there's a hive on metal struts that seems yanked straight out of Heat and Clockwork.

Or Tombs and Krypton.

Fuck. Yes. He's racing back toward the door without a second thought.

" _What, no show today? Am I scaring you or something?! C'mon, that fancy sword dance's only good for--_ "

Dave is sure the brick was here for a good, holding the door open reason, but he finds letting it fly toward the douche's nearest window is a much better use of its potential right now. You do not insult the sword skills. You just don't.

What the hell was his problem anyway. Dave knows he's a choice piece of ass, but that creepy bag of douche will never get laid in his life if it's how he shows appreciation. How come he hasn't figured that out already.

\--

Apparently there's a lot of idiots who will get dead of drone very soon in this place. Maybe it's the streets -- dirty, not really well-lit, and the moons' glow doesn't come down straight, that far down between the buildings. He doesn't want to run because he'd look like he's running from someone, and some asshole might find it funny to trip him, but he jogs, hand on his sword.

No one has a specibus, everyone is visibly armed. They move in pairs, in trios, in small packs, and when they're alone like him they raze the walls. He's so not into doing that. He's -- he was -- the Knight of Time, and he sucks at looking inconspicuous anyway, so he might as well move at the speed he wants to move, where he wants to move.

He keeps getting whistled and catcalled at. Might make a girl shy!

"Where ya goin so fast, Rusty, hang out a bit!"

"Nice handlebars!"

"Cutie -- sweetling -- sugargrub--"

Might make a girl completely wonder what the fuck everyone is smoking. He's not even that small, he's seen smaller trolls, and trolls less muscled than he is -- he's not exactly bodybuilder levels of buff, but sword fighting gives nice muscled shoulders, okay -- and he's cute, he supposes, but what's with the babying bullshit? Are his horns that fucking hot, like maybe he tapped in some kind of ideal of troll sexiness somehow? Does he now come with a psychic drop your panties field as his special troll power? _What gives_?

"Hey," some girl says as she starts jogging at his side. "Like your shirt."

Dave glances down at his shirt. It's... a shirt. It's dark red with a shield-like symbol in white on the front. It covers him from neck to hips and down to his wrists. It doesn't have frills and it's not especially tight over his manly pectorals or his trim waist and it's... just... a ... shirt.

The girl is in black with some kind of green squiggle, but she's maybe twice Nepeta's weight, and none of it is fat; she's one head taller than Dave and she has a halberd strapped to her back. Dave's smuppet sense tingles.

"Pretty bold. Suits you."

Whaaaat. Dave rolls his eyes behind his shades. "Yeah, I am all up with the highest fashion, got a show in Troll Paris coming up soon."

She's starting to crowd him a bit, but if he starts letting her herd him toward the wall he's gonna end up stuck. "Haha, you're funny. Hey, where are you going like that?"

He cannot understand how she didn't get the _fuck off_ underlining the joke. He hops over a box someone left in the street, is a little disappointed when she speeds up to catch up after going around. "Someplace. What do you want?"

She snatches his wrist, yanks him to a stop. Smiles, like it was charming and not obnoxious as hell. Aw, fuck, why was he playing it _polite_. "You, wearing green. I'm sure you'd look even hotter."

Hitting girls is bad, says a third of his brain, it isn't nice or fair. The second third points at Terezi and Rose and Jade -- hitting those girls would be a bad plan only because they would hit back, harder.

The last third goes, _hey, she's bigger and musclier than you, asshole, and her teeth are getting way too fucking close to your face_.

"What the hell is everyone's fucking _problem_!" he snaps, short and irritated, and twists his hand free. The scabbard is briefly awkward to navigate -- one second, no more, but her hand isn't done twitching toward her halberd that he has the point of his blade under her chin.

And she has the gall to look shocked, affronted. "Hey, what the hell?"

"You put that hand on me again, _sis_ , you'll be losing it."

He turns on his heels, puts on a burst of speed -- he can still flashstep, it's a relief. He should have done it sooner; he didn't want to be running away but right now he just wants to _be away_ and he doesn't give a shit who thinks what about it.

" _\--was just trying to be **nice** , you psycho bitch!_" she's yelling from half a street away. Dave grits his teeth and runs faster.

\--

[ ](http://saeto15.tumblr.com/post/44838733236/stop-fucking-hitting-on-me-this-is-getting)

"Wow, _that's_ a sweet rack," someone says from behind him, and touches his shoulder; Dave is whirling around with his blade free and singing in the next instant.

It doesn't go far, because psychics are fucking unfair.

"Cool your human tits, douchelord," Sollux tells him, an eyebrow arched, and casually tucks his shoulder-poking hand back in his pocket.

Sollux. _Sollux._

For a few seconds Dave is not sure whether he wants to strangle or hug him. He does neither, but his fingers twitch.

"Hey," he manages to say back. Comes out a bit strangled, against his best attempts. "Captor. So. You live around here? Nice place. I'm lying by the way, it's a sucky place. Hey."

Sollux. Shit. That's so lucky he can't believe it. In a city this size? Really?

He wants to lean on him and wrap his arms around his scrawny nerd neck and hold the fuck on. The impulse freezes him on the spot. They're not even close at all, barely talked, and besides Dave wasn't _that_ freaked out, and he was just about to sort his own shit, the river can't be far now and -- and.

Shit.

"Uh."

"I live a couple streets over. Was wondering," he says with an eyeroll that says he was wondering jack shit and someone would have to be stupid not to know for sure, "what that brand new hive in the river was doing there, went to investigate. I'm assuming you did the same?"

"Yeah. Same."

Sollux has started to amble down the street, but he pauses, turns to frown at Dave, mouth pursed. "DV? You need a soothing time-out in a corner or what? I am _not_ papping you, but just saying, you're almost having an expression here."

"Fuck you", Dave manages to shoot back, "I just spent the last hour running the creeper gauntlet, I feel like I swam upriver in a sewer of nothing but pure liquid sleaze. Come here and pretend to be my boyfriend or something, okay."

The telephone pole in troll guise stares at him for a second, two. Dave starts to think that maybe he did not sound as uncaring as he was trying for. "... Is your hive on the south side of town."

"Uh. Yep? Pretty much straight south from here."

"Did you come in a straight line? Oh jegusfuck you _did_ , you crossed the Sink in a _red_ fucking _shirt_. I can't believe --" He groans, massages the bridge of his nose. "No, okay, yes, I can believe it from you, but _fuck_."

"What's _wrong_ with my shirt?!" Dave finally explodes, hands thrown in the air. Considering he's still holding a naked sword he maybe understands why people step a little wider around him. "It's a shirt! It covers me! It's not tight! It's not showing a plunging view of my absence of tits! It's not advertising my brothel on the back! It's--"

"It's _red_ ," Sollux replies, patiently, and grabs Dave by the wrist to get him to move.

Last guy who tried this, Dave kicked in the kneecap without even having to think twice. He trudges after Sollux, growling, and doesn't even try to pull free. Sollux's fingers are thin, strong.

He tingles like an incoming lightning strike.

"Listen, I'll explain when we get to your weird ecto-relative's place, for now let's just get out of the fucking street."

Dave breathes in, breathes out. Sheathes his sword. "Yeah, okay. But only as long as you hold my hand like it's made of really precious shit and pretend to be my doting and hella jealous matesprit."

Sollux quirks an eyebrow at him, head tilted doubtfully. "Why don't I just pretend to be your crew, _which it turns out I actually am?_ "

"Huh?"

He gets stared at again, and then Sollux lets out a huge put-upon sigh and tugs him closer. "Seriously," he's muttering, "wake up and smell the pheromones -- here, get a sniff of that."

'That' is apparently his neck. Uh. "Bit intimate in public, snookums," Dave starts, but to keep speaking he has to breathe in, and _oh_.

Ozone and wry, dry things, dry humor and bare bones, a gleaming, bright bear trap of a mind, it has nothing to do with smells anymore, it's just. Oh.

"I take it you're not psychic. You'd have known sooner. Feeling better?"

Dave is, surprisingly enough, though the fact that he understands just about jack shit anymore is _not fucking helping_ keep his mood nice and even.

It's like it doesn't even matter they're surrounded in people who are likely still watching Dave's ass, still watching them. It's a them now, Sollux-and-Dave, they're a team, it's safe. Safer, at least. And Sollux still has a shit-ton of raw power to bring down on anyone who'd try anything.

"Yeah," Dave decides after a few seconds. "I'm good. Weirded out to hell and beyond, but after dying of sunsplosion and coming back a god, what's a little alien goodness in my life, amirite. Shit, and here I was thinking trolls had no surprises left for me anymore."

Sollux lets go of his wrist. His skin feels cold. He stuffs his hand in his pocket, as casual as he can -- not very, right now.

"So uh. What actually happened. Like. Are we now soulmates or some shit. Or what."

Sollux rolls his eyes, keeps walking, shoulders and spine loose like he hasn't a care in the world. Dave puts on a burst of speed to catch up. He might perhaps be tempted to bump their shoulders together. It's uncool, and it's even more uncool to be that worked up about it, and he doesn't even dare, which is stupid on top of the uncoolness.

"Jegus, don't make such a huge deal out of it, it's just that shit that happens when you trust some asshole not to kill you out of hand anymore. And it's pretty defective, because like all instincts it still doesn't hold up to actual thinksponge-based decisions. It means you can actually be betrayed or killed by crew, just that when it happens you're the moron standing there blinking uncomprehendingly."

"Huh. Yeah?"

Sollux trudges on, shoulders hunched. "Vriska."

"Oh. Huh."

"Granted, she was only Aradia's crew because she was Tavros'. Can we wait until we're at your pseudocestor's hive and I don't have to explain it twice? Thanks, awesome, you're a regular prince, Strider."

They're on a street that follows the water now anyway. Dave scans the water for Dirk's house -- ah, there it is. He could dance up to it, he's so fucking glad to be there.

They reach the hive's level and they stop, staring up at its metal struts. It's maybe six meters away from the bank, but there's no boat, no drawbridge, and no doorbell. And the water is brownish with silt and festooned in pollution rainbows and plastic bags and dead fish.

"Okay, now what? I'm not stepping in this. You flying us up?"

"Yeah, nope, I've got a migraine trying to sneak up on me from behind, I'm keeping the fireworks to a minimum today." Sollux whips out some kind of PDA. From his pocket; Dave is really starting to suspect bad things about the continued existence of sylladexes.

TA: rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your gel na2ty haiir  
TA: unle22 you want your ance2torclone beiing mole2ted in the 2treet for iinappropriiate attiire ii mean whatever iit'2 hii2 viirgiiniity

"-- _Hey_."

TT: Right. Wait a moment.

A couple of seconds go by.

TT: He doesn't look naked from up here. If there truly is a problem with his attire, how about you offer him your shirt, like a true gentleman?   
TA: yeeeah how about YOU go throw your2elf on my matespriit'2 culliing fork bulge fiir2t  
TA: i second the fucking suggestion bro what the hell  
TA: also i look fucking charming in red down with the haterz  
TA: is that how much you worry about me my heart is broken into a zillion pieces  
TT: My guilt shall ever after torture me. You've got thirty seconds.

Two, three, six metallic things rise from the water, a trail of slippery steps to jump. Dave is so ready to be out of the street; he goes, hopping along, and barely slips. Sollux follows, hands in pockets; they cross with five seconds to spare, and then they're swinging their way over to the first bar and finding the ladder on the inside of a support column. Up Dave climbs, one floor and then two and then three, tedious as fuck and tiring too. At least if he falls on Sollux he's sure Sollux will catch him with his brain, if only because Dave's weight would knock him off the ladder otherwise.

He reaches the landing. On a whim, he tries his key; it fits. He walks in. Inside it's like a bizarro home, almost exactly identical except for the places where it's entirely different, most of the time just subtle enough to make him think, hey, wasn't that poster one inch to the left?

He gets little time to ponder it, anyway, because then Dirk walks out of the bedroom.

Bam, impact.

He has black hair too, it's wrong. His horns point the same way his shades do. He's _gray_.

He's Dirk. Dave is holding on.

He's Dirk and Bro and safe, safe, _safe_ , he's Dave's and Dave's his and oh, yes, this.

Maybe a minute or two later he realizes he has his nose buried in his not-quite-brother's neck, his new troll claws caught in a black shirt, and the weird little click-rusty noise is coming from his throat.

Dirk's nose is smushed in his hair, and his hands are on his shoulder blades, resting light like maybe he doesn't know how to hug back.

"Um," he says.

"Yeah," Dirk answers.

"And for our next trick, we shall now proceed to pile each other lavishly. Backrubs will be involved. Do you guys want me to wait outside or what?"

"Shut up, Sollux," Dave grumps back, and relaxes his hold. "Bleah. Sorry, just. Weird troll instinct shit. I -- bro?"

Dirk gives an almost imperceptible twitch, like he's waking from a dream. Welp. Dave supposes he did have a preview of that weirdass thing with Sollux; Dirk was probably blindsided.

"Yeah, I. That was interesting. Also, do you remember the sign of that asshole who touched your ass, I need to track him down and kill him."

Dave stares dumbly at that stone-faced troll standing before him with his shard-like horns canted forward a bit like he's planning to gore someone with them.

"Um. What. How the fuck--"

"Telepath?" Sollux asks, wandering closer with unexpected wariness.

"I don't think so," Dirk replies, measured, like he's still figuring it out. "I'm not seeing his thoughts -- I'm not even seeing the face of that fucking bastard, I just -- _rrhhrhsst_."

Okay, Dave has heard Karkat make this noise, like, a lot. And Terezi twice, about Gamzee, and Kanaya about the Mayor that time he exploded a can of soup on her newly alchemized roll of saffron silk. It's the 'you better run fast' noise.

It makes something coil tight and lava-hot in his guts, rattling along with the sound.

"Hm. Just the feelings? Empath, then. Also, you're leaking. You need to stop that shit."

Dirk takes in a deep breath through his nose. Dave bumps his fist against his tattooed shoulder, hesitant, and feels lame. The anger abates, though.

"Molested in the street. You said. Explain."

Dave groans. "Can we just... like, okay, fine, Sollux, tell me why a perfectly normal red shirt is apparently a huge fucking _come get some sugar_ sign, like, from an academic point of view, and then let's talk about having breakfast, cause suddenly I'm hungry as shit, you got anything, bro?"

He knocks his horn against the tip of Dirk's in passing. Ow.

"Help yourself," Dirk says dryly as Dave pokes around in the fridge, behind the swords. "Captor? The explanation?"

Sollux sighs; Dave watches him from the corner of his eye, he finds the computer desk and plops his bony ass on a corner of it. "Several factors. First, that was a relatively bad area of town. Second, DV does have pretty impressive horns. The only way he's going down that street unnoticed is if TV is, like, opening the way."

Dave snorts. "Holy shit, Tavros opening the way. They'd pretty much have to make way, wouldn't they. He'd break someone's neck three steps in otherwise."

"I meant more in that they'd be too busy ogling his rack to ogle yours."

Dave figured. He was just trying not to think about it. He burrows back in the fridge with a little frustrated, uneasy hmph.

"Third, hemospectrum."

Dave groans. "Oh no, not that bullshit again."

"I know you think the hemospectrum is stupid, and it is, but your color's _red_ , which means you're a _rust_ blood, remember those? Bottom of the heap? Anyone can do anything to rusts, and no one who's not their friend will give a shit."

Yeah, okay, he did remember that, vaguely. Sollux is right that it's stupid. Aradia's an awesome girl, and also she kicks a ton of ass, what is wrong with this planet.

"AA," says Sollux like he can read his fucking mind, with patience that makes Dave want to kick him a bit, "lives out in the boonies, where her closest neighbors all know her and only care that she's rust inasmuch as it means she can and would send ghosts to haunt them straight off a fucking cliff if they crossed her. When you shove a ton of trolls together in close quarters they'll work overtime on the pecking order, and most of the time it means they default to hemospectrum-based bullshittery. Still with me?"

Dave grunts, reluctantly.

"And your shirt's not black with a discreet sign on it, it's _entirely_ red, which means you're _advertising_."

Dave extracts himself from the fridge to stare. "Okay, what the fuck."

Dirk blinks, and then slaps his forehead. "Oh hell, bro, you just walked down the bad part of town in high heels and a miniskirt."

"Okay, how the fuck do you even know that, you never saw a miniskirt in your life."

"Roxy had a ton of them, actually. The things I suffered in the name of friendship, man."

"Yeah but she had no bad part of town to walk down!"

"There are these thing called movies, maybe you've heard of them. And these things called _books_. There are words inside them, they say things."

" _How does being rust means I'm suddenly a girl?!_ "

Dirk and Sollux tilt their heads at him in disturbingly similar way. Sollux is making a 'oh please, you are not that stupid' face; fair bet Dirk's eyes say the same thing. Dave scowls back.

Sollux's eyebrow quirks. "What does being a girl have to do with jack shit?"

"Systematic oppression," Dirk tells Sollux, like it's academic. "In human society, women being less valued than men, and less able physically and encouraged culturally to defend themselves, they were less respected, their boundaries tested and disregarded much more easily, and their wish not to be perved on considered less important than the sacred right of men to perv on them. What you're saying here is rustbloods are the caste everyone else thinks looks best on its back."

"Mnh. Goes from top on down, really, so if you're a --" Sollux squints at Dirk's chest, "hm, you're brown, okay, you _might_ be perved on by other browns or yellows but it's way less likely than being perved on by olivebloods and up. If you're olive, you've got to be careful around blues and up. If you're a sea dweller, well, those guys all tend to huge dickbaggery so who cares if the Empress diddles a few here and there to cure her ennui."

They nod like it's all fascinating academic shit. Dave is not hungry anymore. He just -- all those jokes about using his horns to steer. He hasn't even _checked_ what was in his fucking pants.

"--Bro? Dave? Hey -- Dave."

Dirk is in his face. Dave turns away, crosses his arms. "Noted, red shirts mean _come and get some_."

"I think," Sollux says, scratching at his jeans like the spot on them is actually interesting, "from you it was -- would have been? -- more of a _try it, it'll be funny_."

... Yeah, he might perhaps see how that could be. If he knew what he was saying with his fucking clothes, at least, if he was saying it deliberately. Being blindsided with it was -- really fucking unpleasant.

He'll steal one of Dirk's shirts when it's time to go back. He's wearing shades, not like anyone will be able to tell he doesn't match.

"Yeah, okay. Now can I ask you a super duper important question, bro. _Can I ask you if you have wifi_."

"You can ask," Dirk replies with an amused little smirk.

He is surrounded by pedants. "And then can I steal it."

"Ain't theft if I'm giving you permission, bro."

"But it's _easier_ theft if I case the joint first, figure out whether I need a network key."

"You don't," Sollux says, PDA in hand. "By the way, JD says if you're not online in ten seconds she's teleporting over and strangling you. Considering she has no idea where we are in relation to her and the miles between us might well blow her brains out..."

"Yeah, yeah, shut up, god, tell her I'm making myself a sammich, I'll be around in a minute."

He turns away to do just that.

Also to breathe, and to steady his hands, so he won't mistype.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://saeto15.tumblr.com/post/44797058950/dirk-dave-and-rose-as-trolls-from-asukaskerians)  
>  Art by Saeto15.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John tiems!
> 
> This one has pairings: John ♠ Karkat and Vriska ♦ John.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling ectoBiologist [EB] --

CG: ALRIGHT, YOU FESTERING SHITWHIFF.  
CG: IT IS THE EVENING OF THE THIRD DAY WE HAVE BEEN OUT OF THAT HELL-FORGED GAME.  
CG: AND THE THIRD DAY YOUR FREAKISH BROWN MUG HAS BEEN CONSIDERABLY IMPROVED, BY THE BY.  
CG: YOU GOT ONLINE. YOU WERE THEREFORE NOT DEAD ON ARRIVAL.  
CG: AFTER DUE PRESSURE VRISKA TELLS ME YOU HAVE BEEN COMMUNICATING WITH HER. YOU THEREFORE DID NOT DIE AFTERWARDS IN SOME LUDICROUS PAIL-RELATED INCIDENT.  
CG: HAVING ESTABLISHED THAT YOU ARE ALIVE AND IN POSSESSION OF UNBROKEN KEY-POKING FRONDS, *WHY HAVE YOU NOT BEEN TO ANY OF THE FUCKING CHATROOMS*, JOHN ASSHAT WHINEBUTT EGBERT.  
CG: IF ONLY TO SAY HI AND ASK WHAT WAS THE PLAN? GET SOME NEWS ABOUT YOUR FELLOW HUMANS? EVERYONE'S FINE, BY THE WAY. SINCE YOU SEEMED SO WORRIED ABOUT THAT.  
CG: ROXY AND JANE ARE STILL OUT OF REACH. BUT THEY AT LEAST HAVE SEEN FIT TO SHARE WITH US THEIR FOOD AND AMENITIES SITUATION, SO WE MAY NOT WORRY THEY ARE STARVING BECAUSE THEY CAN'T FIND THE DELIVERY DROP-POINT OR THE DISTRIBUTION CENTER WHEN THEIR ALLOWANCE COMES AROUND.  
CG: DID YOU KNOW ROSE HAS NEIGHBORS WHO ARE TRYING TO RUN HER OFF INTO THE SEA? SEEING AS HER GILLS ARE NON-FUNCTIONAL THAT MIGHT PROVE TO BE AN ISSUE, BUT SO FAR SHE IS HANDLING THE CONFLICT LIKE A CHAMP. I BELIEVE SHE WILL SOON BE IN POSSESSION OF TWO MORE HIVES.  
CG: DIRK AND DAVE ARE NEIGHBORS WITH SOLLUX. STROKE OF PURE LUCK.  
CG: AND YOU MISSED JADE LIVEBLOGGING HER HUNT THROUGH RAINFORESTS AND SEVERAL CHOLERBEARS FOR JAKE, GONE GALLIVANTING WITHOUT BRINGING A MAP.  
CG: I CAN KEEP TYPING ALL NIGHT.  
CG: HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT LITTLE NEW MESSAGE PING?  
CG: YOU WILL HAVE TO ANSWER AT SOME POINT.  
EB: fuck off, karkat.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] blocked carcinoGeneticist [CG] ! --

CG: WHAT THE TENDER HEINOUS DONKEYFUCK.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] did not receive this message! --

\--

"So this is where you holed up."

John's new hive has three kitchens. One of them right toward the top tower, where the delivery ladybug drops food. One of them more toward the middle, a short flight of stairs down from his bedroom. And then there's the kitchen all the way down in the root of his hive that looks exactly like home, apart from being dusty and empty and still tar-marked. His bedroom is three times as big as it was, suddenly several floors' worth of stairs separate his upstairs and downstairs rooms, he has four living rooms and a _treasure room_. (It's mostly empty.)

And there's a laundry room, where a chute brings dirty clothes straight in the insect-looking machine for it to chew up and spit out clean.

He's been staying here, dozing sitting up against the rumbling shell. Nothing bad can happen in a laundry room, it's against the rules.

Also it's too dark to see any colors properly.

Karkat's red eyes are bright enough they cut right through the shadows, even though he has the corridor lamp straight at his back and is haloed in light.

John growls. The sound comes easy, rattling up from his chest and out. (He's blocking his way out.) "What are you doing here."

"Take a guess! So many possibilities. I could be visiting Equius, only, whoops, Aradia dropped me off too early. I could be visiting _Vriska_. The myriad of times I have visited Vriska before, I tell you, it's incredible, we're the best bulge buddies."

John hisses. He tries to stop hissing and he can't, he tries to stop being angry and he can't.

"Shut up about Vriska! You know jack shit about her, you're always on about all the bad things she's done and you don't care about any of the good, like it doesn't even count!"

Karkat's eyes narrow, and he steps in; the door swings mostly closed behind him and then they're two people in too small a room and John can't stay on his ass anymore.

"That's because, surprisingly enough, _it doesn't_. You can't erase murder and maiming with backhanded, strings-attached charity and being allowed to admire her grandstanding as she does shit she wanted to do for herself anyway."

John is half on his feet, pressing hard against the dryer-bug, and he thinks maybe he shouldn't stand. Because if he stands and Karkat keeps badmouthing Vriska, he -- he doesn't know what will happen.

Vriska talked him down over Trollian, Vriska laughed at things until he could laugh too, and made bad jokes and groaned about never having thought she'd ever be anyone's pacificator but then she did it anyway. He feels calmer when he's talking to her, he feels _almost right_ when he's talking to her. She came by and she smelled right, she felt safe and like nothing would ever get through her, and she let him hug her and cry in her shirt even when her ribs cracked under his hug.

He knows she did some serious shit, he _got on her case_ for her shit, just... He can't take Karkat sneering at her right now. He can't.

"I need you to stop there and go away, Karkat," he says, trying for light. His jaw is too tense, it doesn't come out right at all. "I need you to shut up, like, right now. I'm fine, you're fine, everyone's fine, now _go away_."

Karkat (the intruder) takes a few steps further in. Takes the center of the room (blocks all escapes, claims the room, no, fuck him, mine.)

"You are so far past fine it's not even funny. It wouldn't get a laugh out of Gamzee fucking Makara is how unfunny it is, and that asshole would laugh at empty rooms."

Oh hey John is on his feet.

Karkat watches him, hands on his hips and eyes narrowed in suspicion, irritation, whatever, it's haughty and demanding and John doesn't like it. (Who does he think he is? He gave up being a leader years ago, and he's never been John's, they've never met as equals and now he wants to meet as John's superior? Seriously?)

(Trespassing.) John takes a step forward. (Stranger.) He's taller than Karkat; Karkat is wider-shouldered but like John cares, now that he can punch through rock.

He clenches his fists.

"In a garment washing block? Seriously? This is where the mighty _friendleader_ is hiding like a lost wiggler, and whining about stuff no one else can understand -- except those other seven people who went through the exact same fucking thing? Avoiding those people who might perhaps have a fucking idea what he's going through?"

In mid-swing the intruder's eyes go wide and he throws himself to the side; John stumbles forward, and straightens up, and they knock into each other. He hooks his (claws) fingers in the intruder's sleeve, tries to yank him back into grabbing position.

A fist buries itself in his stomach; he wheezes, gasps for breath, stumbling until his weight is caught by a furnace-hot body, his face mashed against -- oh.

It smells... (right.) (not good.)

He bites down on Karkat's shoulder, a burst of madness he can't stop, doesn't want to stop (should, no, shouldn't, stop, oh the _taste_.)

(Karkat.) (No. Yes.)

He swings again and knocks Karkat on his ass; he doesn't kick at his face -- that'd break his nose, maybe his _head_ , even when you're angry at your (friends?) you don't break bones, scuffling is -- his dad taught him, even back in kindergarten, scuffling happens but no big wounds, none.

(There's a drop of not-his-blood on his lips. Oh.)

Karkat tackles him, catches him in the thighs, he goes down, they roll on the floor, shoving and scratching, he sucks at scratching, that was always a girl thing (but now he kind of _is_ a --)

He gets on top. He grabs a stupid turtleneck collar with both hands, claws anchored in. He... what now? Can't kill Karkat, he's. He's _Karkat_. (why did he forget Karkat was Karkat, that was stupid, of course he's not really an intruder.) Can't kill him but so _angry_ at him, so angry at his words and at his little irritated judgmental sneers and his nosy prodding, and he's trying to _talk_ again!

It makes sense to bite his chin.

It makes sense to bite his mouth, but by then Karkat is biting John's mouth already so he's really just counterattacking.

It stings, it burns. The taste explodes in his mouth, the -- the _awareness_ of -- he can't think. He can't. It explodes, fierce and startled and ferociously _happy_ , and John can't. Can't. He just, he, yes, this, Karkat isn't running away, he can take it, he's not scared of John at all (John is terrified of John.) It feels so good, the way strong hands squeeze his upper arms, knead roughly at his back, the way a tongue, oh, they're kissing, wow. He's kissing someone who is not dead at the time. It's nothing like any movie ever.

He doesn't even have to think about the strange weight of (his horns) those things attached to his skull or his -- anything at all, he just has to keep pressing down on Karkat with all his weight and the full boniness of his hipbones, press so so so tight like some huge angry full-body hug.

Hands running down his back. It tingles, makes his body clench, go _yes, yes_.

Makes things squelch down there.

Down where he has a -- a gap, a rift, a -- some _absence_ he doesn't want, something that should never have been there, something gross and horrible and terrifying.

He throws himself off the other boy, crawls back on hands and feet until he hits a wall, two walls, curls up so tight in the corner. He hugs his knees, and feels it opening _wider_ , feels the -- the other thing _wriggle_ like a gross snake-slug thing, making his pants disgusting, and _he can't get away from it_.

\--

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG] --

CG: I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I'M EVEN TALKING TO YOU, SAVE THAT  
CG: I, UH.  
CG: MAY HAVE INADVERTENTLY BROKEN JOHN.  
AG: What the heck, Vantas.  
AG: W8, are you at his hive right now????????  
CG: YES. ACTUALLY.  
CG: SO WHAT? HE WAS GIVING ZERO NEWS AND YOU WERE BEING RIDICULOUSLY SECRETIVE. IT'S MY JOB TO KEEP TRACK OF YOU ASSHOLES, ESPECIALLY THE HUMANS. I DIDN'T EXPECT HIM TO GO ALL HIGHBLOOD RAGEGASM ON ME.  
AG: How are you even alive, is what I'd like to know... If I gave a shit!  
AG: I s8d I had it under control f8r a REASON!!!!!!!!  
AG: What did you do?  
CG: ME? NOTHING. HE STARTED IT.  
CG: I JUST KISSED BACK. FUCK. I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING.  
CG: I KISSED BACK, AND NOW HE'S *CRYING.*  
CG: I DON'T KNOW WHY I EVEN CARESS THE SICKLY, MANGY HOPE THAT YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO, BUT WHEN I GET CLOSER HE JUST STARTS TO CRY HARDER AND TRIES TO CRAWL AWAY FROM ME, IT'S HORRIBLE. AND THE ONLY PEOPLE NEARBY ARE STIFF-NECKED MUSCLE FREAK AND NO MORE WORRIES DEATH FANGIRL, AND EVEN IF THEY COULD HELP THEY'RE PROBABLY BUSY FILLING PAILS RIGHT NOW IN ANY CASE.  
CG: HE'S THROWN UP TWICE. THIS IS DOING WONDERS FOR MY SELF-ESTEEM, I AM TELLING YOU.  
AG: OH MY G8G WHAT DID YOU DO, HE'S 8EEN FREAKING OUT A8OUT HIS JUNK EVER SINCE HE 8ECAME A TR8LL!!!!!!!!  
AG: Shit. Once again Vriska Serket needs to come and fix your stupid mistakes, and what will she get in return? A 8ig fat glo8 of nothingness and scorn! Awesome, it's not like I was 8usy or anything today!  
AG: I'll 8e right there. Try not to mol8st him any more in the meantime.

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

AG: Flush or pitch?

\--

Vriska finds them still in the laundry room. Karkat has retreated to the opposite corner of the room from John, too guilty to leave and too miserable to get any closer. John isn't really sobbing anymore, but his head is between his knees and from time to time he'll let out one of those wretched little gasps that make Karkat's bloodpusher spurt out globs of entirely unwanted pity.

He just... When John wasn't holding back on him, that was so _perfect_.

It's not like it was his first kiss, but it was his first caliginous one. Not a kiddie black kiss, there, either, just fire and hunger, something he hadn't even truly visualized back when he got that ill-advised, short-lasting little hatecrush on John.

Humans don't feel caliginous hate, Karkat knows that. (Human boys don't kiss other boys. Even though girls will sometimes kiss girls, what the fuck is that double standard.)

Karkat should have guessed it would fuck him up. He should have _thought_. He wasn't thinking at all, he was just thinking about how irritated John's selfish whining made him. Everyone has been fretting about him, and he just --

Vriska sits on her haunches beside John and pats his head between his spades-shaped horns, brisk, lips pursed in annoyance; John crumbles against her chest and starts crying anew. Karkat looks away, embarrassed.

She's shooshing him. She's matter of fact and possibly embarrassed, too; it makes her a little curt, it makes Karkat frown, but John's fisted hands are loosening and besides Karkat has already showed how much he helped there, so he shuts up.

"... Why are you wearing makeup," John asks, voice scratchy and strangely small.

"No reason," Vriska replies. "Shoosh already." Karkat can hear the pout in her voice.

It's true, she's in low heels and a spiderweb-patterned dress, what the heck did she -- oh. Oooh. Karkat bets she was planning to camp all night at her window so she could seductively recline on what the fuck ever she has up there just as Aradia happened to fly back from Equius' hive. Boy is she barking up the wrong tree. Ever since Aradia came back to life she doesn't give a flying crap about her old grudges anymore, wow. Besides Karkat is pretty sure Aradia and Equius have gone right back to flipping like a shoddily secured door in a hurricane, so if Vriska thinks she can seem in any way appealing to a girl who goes hot and angry for haughty, stiff, musclebound douches...

She's whispering now, all quietly, and it takes him a minute before he realizes he should _really_ get the fuck out of this room.

"Joooohn, we talked about this! There is nothing wrong with your junk. You have it, Karkat has it, I have it, all your other ex-human hatefriends have it."

At the same time it seems John is calming down now, and if he gets reminded Karkat is here he might jump straight on the express back to freakoutville.

"That's not what makes you a guy at all, what a dumb idea! Seriously, it is dumb and you should feel dumb for having it."

How does this style of "reassurance" even fucking work, is what Karkat wonders. It's so full of backhands they start looking like paps. And it pretty much dismisses all his issues instead of addressing -- shit, none of Karkat's business, he's not judging. It works. Karkat slowly, cautiously shifts on his feet and pads as silently as he can toward the door, slips sideways out.

He doesn't go too far, finds a corner of corridor to sit in and wait.

What a mess.

What if John didn't mean it at all, not even a little bit? Karkat can take him being confused between his new troll desires and his old experience, he supposes there's a lot he has to get used to. But what if it was just his body, and random violence, and wires crossed and a switch tripped that shouldn't have been -- what if it was utterly meaningless?

He'll just deal with it, he guesses. He's getting ahead of himself again. He did the whole pinning all his dreams and expectations on what he hoped his relationship with Terezi would be like, tried to force it in, and instead ruined the shit out of it forever. He's just...

He's eight sweeps old, and he doesn't have a kismesis, he doesn't have any concupiscent quadrant, and it was _hot as fuck_.

Bluh.

\--

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling arsenicCatnip [AC] --

CG: SO WHAT ARE THE ODDS ON JOHN<>VRISKA.  
AC: :33 < !!!!!!  
AC: :33 < *bookie clawshanks straightens her ledger and says shell n33d to s33 some purroof of your allegations, gentleman*  
CG: WITNESSED: SEVERAL PAPS AND THE BRUTAL CESSATION OF A FREAK-OUT OF HIGHBLOOD MAGNITUDE.  
CG: WHY ARE THOSE HOITY-TOITY TURDFUCKERS SO *TOUCHY*, SERIOUSLY? SUPERIOR BREEDING, MY WELL-TONED GLUTES.  
AC: :33 < h33h33h33  
AC: :33 < your odds are alas a mere thr33 to one, im furry sorry to say  
CG: DID I MENTION VRISKA WAS THE ONE WHO SHOOSHED HIM.  
AC: :33 < ... welp, you just broke the bank :((

\--

Vriska comes out of the garment washing block, alone; Karkat tries not to shrink. He pulls himself up. He doesn't like being on the floor when she's standing, just feels unsafe.

Hands on her hips, she tosses her hair over her shoulder imperiously. "Alright, Vantas, this is how it's going to go. You're going to shove your bulge back where it came from, and then you're going to go tell John you're still friends and this changed _nothing_ , do you hear me."

Karkat opens his mouth. He's not even sure what he should say -- he's being out-snarled by _Vriska_ , _no one_ out-snarls him but right now nothing comes. He can't help but feel he deserves the tongue-lashing.

"I don't care if you have to _lie_ , you're still going to say it, or I'm going to _make you_."

He can feel her cold claws easing their way around his brain. He hisses. "Keep your caustic slurry of a mind out of my mind, I don't need it. I was going to do that anyway."

He'd known he would have to, didn't he? Even as he'd stupidly tried to convince himself there was a smidgen of a chance. So pathetic.

He shoulders his way past her, pushes the door open. John is sitting against the dryergrub, head tilted back, the points of his horns resting against its quivering surface. He still looks small, fragile. He looks up at Karkat and his eyes flick away, back, there's something that's almost a smile trying to form on his face, it's -- it aches.

Karkat goes to sit beside him, not touching, elbows loosely resting on his knees.

"Sorry," they both say together. John lets out a little nervous laugh.

"Sorry, I'm still. Kind of, uh." John gestures, a wave of his hand that comes out utterly meaningless. Karkat isn't sure what he was supposed to glean from it. The enormity of his 'uh,' perhaps?

"Freaked out," Karkat suggests, neutral as he can be.

"Yeah. That. I was -- I mean, I was totally -- I have no clue what even happened there, it just -- I have no clue. None of the clues."

"If you start throwing asinine memes at me I am going to miraculously force-evolve my deficient genome into granting me the gift of teleportation just so I can go throw myself into the sea and drown."

John giggles, a bit wetly. "Maybe I should keep going then, we'd get Jade to get you out of the water. You'd be the magic troll, it would be you."

Karkat groans. John turns on a knee to face him, grinning.

"I would do it for you, buddy! Yeah, let's do it. Let's give you _all the powers_."

"Which I will then promptly use to wipe myself and my whole species off the face of the universe, to the detriment of exactly no one, at the rate you're going. No, John. No."

They stare at each other, grin against longsuffering (secretly fond) look. It feels strange to Karkat, fragile and bittersweet. He can at least have this. It's good too. Yeah.

John is too pathetic to hate anyway.

"... So why do you smell good anyway! I thought it was just Vriska, are all trolls going to smell like that? It's _really weird,_ okay!"

Karkat is glad his knees are in reach of his forehead.

Bonk. Bonk.

" _No, all trolls are not going to smell good._ Why do I have to explain again? I made three memos about this in the last day alone. _Three_ , John. Where were you? _Sulking_."

John purses his lips and looks at him like Karkat is unreasonable and weird. Argh. "Yeah but you're right here, and my computers are all the way up in my room."

"Aaaaargh." Karkat grabs a hank of his own hair, tugs. It helps, a tiny little bit. He sits back up straight, sighs long and loud as he regards that obnoxious asshole. If he didn't want to kis-- uh, didn't _like_ John, he would storm off and never come back. Yes, he would.

No he wouldn't. Bluh.

"Come here," he says, voice rough, and wraps an arm around John's shoulders to pull him close, looking away. If his eyes fall on John's bitten lips he is going to flip all manners of lids. "Breathe in. Usually this shit should happen over the course of several perigees to a couple of sweeps as we get used to trusting each other, it's just weird because it's hitting you all at once. Happens in smaller degrees to people meeting off the internet for the first time, too. Or doesn't happen, which is worse when you get used to thinking of someone like that and then it turns out they don't click at all. I'm babbling. Why am I babbling. Are you done yet?"

John knocks the outer curve of his horn against Karkat's nubbly round tip, light and teasing, and then draws back. His eyes are a little overbright.

"Whoops, wasn't listening, can you explain again?"

Karkat is turned around and reaching for John's scrawny neck in the next second. The asshole is _laughing_.

Vriska will kill him if he starts hatemacking on John again, and Karkat will _let her_. He regretfully drops his hands, reminds himself that John is not flirting, he's just being a hatefriendly ass. It doesn't count as flirting. It really doesn't.

"Mnrgh. Alright. The small words explanation. Is your thinksponge ready to sustain the traumatic, violating assault of knowledge trying to make itself a place in it?"

"My thinksponge can take anything you can throw at it!"

Not flirting. _Not flirting._ Bad Karkat.

"Okay. Trolls are not raised with other trolls. Trolls are raised alone with nice monsters and there's bad monsters around who they need to run really fast from. Bigger trolls also count as bad monsters. When trolls are big, trolls need to mate to make more little trolls. When troll meets troll, troll sometimes kills troll, so trolls are wary of other trolls. Whoops, wary was a little complicated for you, wasn't it."

John elbows him in the ribs. "Yeah, what's the one syllable version?"

"There isn't one. You'll just have to suffer. Anyway. When troll gets to know other troll and starts thinking other troll might not want to kill troll, hormonal and subconscious psychic thingamajigs happen. It's magic. That's why the words are long."

John is laughing in his hand and rolling his eyes like he doesn't want to admit it.

"The magic things say, yes, this is a person I don't need to kill dead if they come up from behind, or if I'm hungry this person might help feed me a bit, or this person is important to the people who are important to me so I should protect them if I can so my important people won't be sad. Still with me?"

John waves him ahead, making a face. "Yeah, yeah."

"So eventually you end up with this bunch of hatefriends, half of them introduced by people you trust so you trust them a little by proxy, even when you don't actually like them. Which explains how we ended up saddled with--" John tenses; Karkat arches an eyebrow. "Equius or Eridan."

Or Vriska. But it's not like she's the only murderous psychopath in their party. See also Eridan, or Gamzee, who are even traitors on top.

Equius is just naturally gross, or something.

John lets out a little half-hearted chuckle. "Dunno, I don't really know them yet."

"You will." Karkat stretches a leg before him, looks down at it, thoughtful. "Used to be called a cluster, and you'll still see the word in snooty blueblood-oriented magazines, but nowadays in the space age it's called a crew, on account of when conscription day comes you can make a request to be berthed on the same ship. It's not always granted, but they try. In the majority of cases your quadrants and quadrant-corners are part of your crew, so it's easier on everyone than trying to shove hostile assholes together at random and hoping they'll have sorted their romantic shit in time for the next drone season. There's still friction between various crews, but it's not the brooding caverns all over again."

John is relaxed now, a little bored with the lesson, and he rotates his feet from side to side like a wiggler hoping to go running soon. It's so much better than him hiding and brooding in here; Karkat will take it.

"How come I never heard that word before?"

Briefly at a loss, Karkat blinks. "Because -- because! Usually you just need to mention it out loud to someone who's _not in_ , and even back when we started playing we all more or less were. The twelve of us. It was _embarrassing_. And then all that stopped you guys from being in was that you weren't trolls. Bam, obstacle removed, have some pent-up oxytoxin."

He shrugs. It aches a little, thinking of Meenah, Latula even. (Kankri, as little as he wants to admit it; the guy was unbelievably insufferable, but... But.)

"I guess the Beforans, too, if they'd ended up here with us, though we might have had to graduate to a full-on swarm."

John groans. "No, no more weird alien words, I am done with alien words for now, also a swarm sounds gross or maybe like we're locusts or something, are trolls locust people?"

"What the fuck is a locust."

John is getting up, though, so Karkat isn't entirely sorry that apparently discussion time is over. He's not curling up in his corner again. It's great. Karkat pushes himself up against the vibrating dryergrub, dusts himself off.

They stare at each other, briefly at a loss, but fuck awkward silences and fuck those parted lips with the mark of his teeth on them in dark blue.

Okay, no, the point is don't fuck those lips. Um. Urgharhghg.

"We're going upstairs to get your computer," he decides, imperious, "and then we're setting up this memo I keep promising the other guys about organizing a real-life reunion. Come on."

Vriska is still waiting outside, arms crossed, and she looks irritated enough that Karkat has no doubt she spent the time with her ear to the door being bored to tears by the conversation. She looks the both of them up and down, mouth pursed, and then she takes a sudden, jaunty step forward and punches John in the biceps. John goes _ow_ around a laugh.

Takes all kinds, Karkat reminds himself.

"Alright! Since everything is once again well in hand here, I'm going back home to do that thing I put off _especially for you, John_." He smiles a little, embarrassed; Karkat has the awkward displeasure of seeing Vriska briefly look almost nice. Disturbing shit. "But if you really truly need me, you can call me over again and I guess I'll just have to ditch that super important thing."

"Thanks, Vriska."

"But you'll be owing me!"

"Hehe, of course."

They do not, thankfully, hug or anything. Vriska just gives John another half-hearted shoulder punch and saunters off, short dress swinging against her bare thighs, waving over her shoulder without looking back.

Karkat herds John to the upstairs-going staircase.

"So. You and Vriska."

John sputters. "What me and Vriska! We haven't done anything, you put that eyebrow down! She's just been a really great friend, okay?"

"What, haven't even had your first pile yet?"

John pauses on a step to stare back at him. "Huh?"

Irritated, Karkat prods him in the back. "Move, move. Moirallegiance, John."

"--Oh. That's the buddy quadrant, right?"

Karkat facepalms mightily. "Let's... just... yes. The buddy-style human girlfriend type quadrant." It hurts physically to say.

"Uh, I dunno, apparently she dated a doomed me a ways back and it didn't work out, like, at all, I was kind of bummed about it."

Speaking of bums, John has gotten a little ahead of Karkat on the stairs. It takes a second for him to drag his eyes away from the perfectly positioned rump and focus on what John actually said. Then he wishes he hadn't. John has to _mean_ to miss the point entirely, does he? He has to. Yes. Karkat allows himself a tiny growl. "Right here, right now. Do you want to kiss her? With tongue?"

John considers it, humming quietly, mouth pursed quizzically. "Iunno."

"Ffff." Karkat shoos him with his hand, nudges him to go faster on the shitton of stairs. He wants to be stealing John's snacks as he forces him to get online already.

In non-flirting ways. Flirting pitch with John is doomed to failure and eternal shame.

"The answer is no! No, John, it is as visible as Tavros' humongous horns that you do not! Any paler and you'll be puking out fresh snow! Also your bile-bleached endoskeleton, polished to a lustrous shine."

"Hehe, if you say so, mister romance specialist! Maybe I'm going to kiss her tomorrow, huh?"

"Yeah, and then I'll find a message in my tray about the most mortifying awkwardness a troll has ever felt. Fix this for us, Master Vantas, for we hath assfucked it into terrible ruination."

"Haha, fuck you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted a chapter for Jade but she basically freaked out an even shorter time than Rose and went on to Do Stuff, and she's not even living near any local trolls so there wasn't even culture shocks to write about. ;_; Jade fics later!
> 
> Or maybe if i'm lucky I'll figure something out and add a chapter. Anyway that's the end of the first days.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Covalent [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737456) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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